I’m not a cold-weather person. Something about freezing my ass off to the point of being able to register my nipples as deadly weapons doesn’t sit right with me. I mean, when the temperature dips below 70, I’m digging the parka and fur boots out of ...
Latest Articles
The Scars of Moral Injury: How the Air Force’s Secret Operators Face Their Worst Moments
For more than a decade, Lt. Col. Paul Andrews’ job was to rain down destruction on battlefields. As a combat weapons officer on fearsome AC-130 gunships, Andrews would spot enemy positions with the plane’s sensors and cameras, ...
Wush Wush: The Ethiopian Coffee Breaking Rules and Turning Heads
According to legend, coffee was first discovered more than a thousand years ago by a goat herder in the fertile highlands of western Ethiopia’s Kaffa region. Today, the area’s rich farmlands produce some of the best coffee in the world. Ethiopian ...
How the Utility of Combat Shaped My Perception of Usefulness
The sound of gunshots echoed through the school, bouncing off the walls like a demon roaring just around the corner. The school was an old, hollowed-out church, and with all the hard walls and vinyl tile — the same surfaces that easily echo ...
Drowning in Corn Kernels: Inside Sleepy Eye Fire’s Grueling Grain Bin Rescue
When emergency dispatchers told Minnesota’s Sleepy Eye Fire Department that a man was drowning in corn kernels, the volunteers knew they were facing a farm foe as deadly as a city’s towering inferno. “It's just pulling them down like quicksand is ...
The Russian Warship Finally ‘F*cked’ Itself — Ukraine Wins Back Snake Island
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces withdrew from Snake Island on Thursday, June 30, marking a largely symbolic victory for Ukraine as fighting on the eastern front lines and Russian missile attacks countrywide continue to inflict a heavy toll on ...
Motorcycle Crash Kills 11th Airborne Division Paratrooper
A paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division died in a motorcycle crash in Miami Township, Ohio, officials from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson said in a statement released Thursday, June 30. Sgt. Seth P. Vision, 22, was an Army cavalry scout ...
Feds: Pennsylvania Man Threatened 4-Star Milley, Nancy Pelosi
A Pennsylvania man faces 25 years in prison for allegedly mailing threatening letters to US Army Gen. Mark Milley and a string of other military and political leaders. A three-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday, June 28, in ...
Duty-Bound: How It Felt To Tell the Story of Operation Red Wings
One of the deadliest military mishaps the special operations community has ever experienced happened 16 years ago. Steven Smith, a former flight engineer with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, recalled what he experienced during the ...
Prison for Michigan Meth Dealer Who Led Cops on Dangerous High-Speed Chase
An armed Michigan meth dealer who led Lansing cops on a potentially deadly high-speed chase, including steering his car into oncoming traffic, is going to prison. On Wednesday, June 29, in Grand Rapids, US District Court Judge Janet T. Neff ...
Clip-On Thermals: This Tech Could Change How Soldiers Fight at Night
For two decades, night vision and thermal optics were core tools of the trade for Jamey Caldwell. The retired Army sergeant major spent over 20 years as a Ranger and operator in special mission units, where missions were as likely to be carried out ...
Afghanistan’s First Female Pilot Is Now Fighting To Fly for the US Military
When she was a child living in Kabul under the Taliban regime, Niloofar Rahmani would spend hours gazing up at the birds and fantasizing about one day sharing their freedom to fly. With no opportunities to receive a formal education, Rahmani never ...
Dear Jack: Should I Confront the Stolen Valor Guy at the Mall?
Dear Jack, I’m pretty sure I just saw a stolen valor guy at the mall. Should I go back and confront him? Thanks, Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth Garcia Hello Petty Officer 2nd Class Seth! Should you confront a potential ...
How Country Star, Former Army Ranger Keni Thomas Found Passion After Service
Keni Thomas didn’t think twice about whether to reenlist in the days following 9/11. It had been three years since he left the Army Rangers, but Thomas felt the same call to the fight that he had when he’d first enlisted a decade earlier. He was ...
Short on Recruits, Army Eases Tattoo Rules — Too Late for One Woman
All Nichole Scaraglino wanted to do was join the Army. She took a long, winding path on her way toward military service. In her early 20s, she worked in the music industry. She was pursuing her career in Manhattan on 9/11. Later, she became a ...
The Sahel: This Stretch of Africa Saw 6 Coups in 11 Months
A string of coups and attempted coups across the Sahel region of Africa may be opening the door to Russian influence, led by mercenary forces, in some of Africa’s most resource-rich nations. With a climate roughly comparable to that of the ...
Make Your Own Flaming Spanish Coffee
If you’re anything like me, you like to spice up your coffee recipes every once in a while to keep things interesting. What sounds better than coffee mixed with a relatively “harmless” high-content alcohol? As we all know, nothing mixes better with ...
Accused Firebug Returned to US To Face Trial for Arson That Killed Philly Firefighter
Working closely with officials in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, US agents this week stopped an accused firebug fugitive from fleeing to the Middle East after a blaze killed a Philadelphia firefighter. Armed with an arrest warrant, members ...
US Troops To Be Based in Poland and Romania With More Units in Europe
The US military is moving to base thousands of new troops in Central and Eastern Europe, the Pentagon announced Wednesday, June 29. President Joe Biden announced at the NATO Summit in Madrid that the US would move, beef up, or solidify the troop ...
Did Oregon First Responders Help Recover a Shipwrecked Spanish Galleon?
One-Eyed Willy’s treasure wasn’t found, but Oregon archeologists on June 17 recovered timber they suspect might've come from the Santo Cristo de Burgos — a shipwrecked Spanish galleon that inspired the cinematic cult classic The Goonies. But ...
Meet Will XX, the Army Veteran Who Became an Elite Tattoo Artist
He’s tattooed motorcycle gang leaders, Army privates, and special operators, and even Jasen Rauch, the lead guitarist of rock band Breaking Benjamin. Before he became a tattoo industry star, Will XX was an undocumented immigrant, a Los Angeles ...
Psychic Wounds Shared by Veterans of Vietnam, Afghanistan
As I watched the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, I realized that my own generation of service members is not the first to experience the anguish of witnessing our military efforts fall into chaos. Vietnam veterans, upon returning ...
Last Living WWII Medal of Honor Recipient Woody Williams Dies at 98
Five days into the Battle of Iwo Jima, Hershel “Woody” Williams was the only Marine left standing in his six-man demolition team; the others had all been killed or grievously wounded. But Williams’ unit still faced a seemingly endless maze of buried ...
World War II Veterans Share Their Stories at Pearl Harbor
The rain was relentless, drenching every Marine assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, standing in formation this afternoon. Not a single one dared complain though. There’s no room for that when you’re formed up in the shadow of a statue that pays ...
Why Tampons Don’t Work for Treating Bleeding Wounds
How the hell is this a topic in 2022? Myths about tampons — used for centuries to passively absorb a few milliliters of menstrual blood — continue to plague first-aid courses everywhere, proclaiming the feminine hygiene products to be field-expedient ...
Pierce Brosnan’s Embodiment of James Bond Defined the ’90s
Who is your favorite James Bond? It matters more to some people than is reasonable — like, it’s get-into-a-bar-fight serious for them. That may sound absurd, but there’s a very definable reason for such allegiances. While the earliest Bond movies ...
How Firefighters Saved a Florida Man Pinned to Mighty Oak
When firefighters arrived at the Longwood house on June 20, they found a Florida man pinned by a large tree limb, 15 feet up the remnants of a majestic Southern live oak, bellowing. “He was literally screaming the entire time that we were there, ...
Deputies Pull 47 Cats From Sweltering SUV North of Minneapolis
When Chisago County Sheriff’s deputies got dispatched on June 14 to a truck stop an hour north of Minneapolis, they were told a vehicle was so full of cats that its driver couldn't see out his windows. “We literally got there and were like, ‘Oh my ...
Dispatch From the Trenches Before Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion
The Ukrainian soldier warned me to speak no louder than a whisper. The enemy lines were less than 50 meters away, he told me, and my voice — if too loud — could carry across no man’s land and invite gunfire from the other side. “Only 50 meters?” I ...
Nearly Killed in Vietnam, Brian Shul Triumphed To Become SR-71 Pilot
On April 11, 1974, Lt. Brian Shul was shot down over enemy territory while flying an AT-28D Trojan as part of a covert mission along the Cambodian border. Unable to eject, Shul, a US Air Force pilot serving as an adviser with the CIA’s clandestine ...